Angels
by RavenTempestShadowhunter
Summary: Clint and Natasha don't have time for their daughter. She leaves them. But things take an interesting turn when she meets a new friend. Horrible summary, I know. Rated for things that happen later. Character death in later chapters. Prewritten story.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

"You won't shoot me."

Jez's voice didn't shake as she said the words, despite the fact that she was staring down the barrel of a pistol and Alex was being held at knife point. Her eyes never left the identical green ones belonging to the hand holding the pistol either, and she didn't flinch when the Black Widow cocked the gun and lay a finger on the trigger.

* * *

Jezebel Reveka Romanoff grew up in the Avengers Tower. She had four uncles, one of whom was a billionaire and another a god, and three aunts. Like many people she had a mother and a father (although sometimes she was surprised they had lasted so long; their jobs were dangerous enough, and she'd seen the looks her mother gave her father when he did something stupid). She had a cousin her own age, who wasn't technically her cousin, at least not by blood, and who was named Aiden. She and Aiden went everywhere together, even though her mother wasn't very fond of the idea of her making friends with a Stark. There wasn't anyone else Jez could be friends with, and her mother wasn't around enough for Jez to give a damn what she thought.

Which of course was the other problem. Jez's parents were never there. They were always on some mission or another, and when they weren't on a mission they were debriefing or in the medical bay or training or _too tired to play, sorry sweetheart_.

And Jez wouldn't have minded so much, if it weren't for the fact that they were always gone at the most inconvenient times. Her birthday, or Christmas, or the first day of school, when her mother should have been packing her a brown bag lunch and telling her to have a good day at school while waving at her as she got on the bus. Instead she was driven to school in a sports car by Uncle tony who insisted on walking her to her classroom and introducing himself to her teacher.

When she was younger, Jez thought her mother would want to be there if Jez was more like her. She danced and did gymnastics, practiced until she was the best in the class, she trained in hand-to-hand fighting and shooting, and made it to the point where she could beat most of the SHIELD agents when she was ten. But her mother didn't stay, she didn't try to make more time for her daughter. She rarely even made it to Jez's recitals and competitions.

The day Jez decided to leave was Christmas Day the year she was seventeen. For the first time in five years, Clint and Natasha were going to be there. For the first time in five years Jez was going to get to see them open her presents to them, instead of sending them on a mission and hoping her parents remember to open them.

They were just about to sit down to Christmas dinner when Clint's phone went off. He glanced at it, then gave a nearly inaudible sigh and caught Natasha's eye.

Of course they apologized profusely for having to leave, but Jez had heard it all before and just nodded her way through it. When they were gone, she excused herself to the bathroom.

She was tired of it. Tired of her parents always leaving, tired of wanting to be someone she wasn't. She didn't need to be here anymore. Her parents didn't want her, and she would be eighteen soon.

There was a knock at the door, and Jez looked up.

"Jez?" It was Aiden's voice. "You ready? Steve wants to start opening presents."

"Yeah, I'll be right out," she answered. She winced at the sound of her voice. She sounded tired.

Apparently Aiden could hear it, too, because he opened the door, stepped inside, and shut it behind him. "They'll come back, Jez. And they'll open your presents and then you can have your own little Christmas with them."

Jez shook her head. "That isn't the problem. I'm sick of them not being here. It's Christmas. Why couldn't they just tell Fury no? Just this once." She leaned back against the toilet.

"Come on, Jez, you know it's their job," Aiden said.

"Well I wish it wasn't," Jez replied, and stood up. She washed her hands in the sink, dried them off, and looked at her cousin. "Come on I don't want to be the one to keep Thor waiting. I bet he can smell the poptarts we gave him."

Aiden laughed as he held the door open for her and they went to rejoin their family.

* * *

On New Year's Eve they stayed up to watch the ball drop. Jez knew they would all sleep late the next morning (Tony to get rid of his hangover, Bruce and Steve to regain their energy, and Thor because, well, Thor always slept late) so she packed the night before and was ready to go at one o'clock the next morning, after the excitement of the new year had passed and everyone had gone to bed.

She walked for hours, until the first rays of dawn were peaking over the New York skyscrapers and she settled down to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**justsumwhitedude: Thank you, and I'm glad you didn't have to wait long!**

**Avamys: Ooh, I can't tell you. But keep reading. I think you'll like it.**

**I don't own the Avengers. I own Jez, Aiden, and Alex.**

**Chapter 2**

Tony's head pounded as he stumbled into the kitchen. Steve was sitting at the table, a mug of tea in one hand and a newspaper in the other. He looked up when Tony came in. "Good morning," he said.

Tony grunted at him and sat down. Pepper came in a minute later and placed a glass of water and two aspirin in front of him. "How do you feel?" she asked, nodding quickly at Steve.

Tony mumbled something that Pepper chose not to interpret. She sighed and poured herself a cup of coffee, then sat down next to Tony. "Good morning, Steve," she said, and sipped her coffee.

"Morning," Steve replied, not looking up from his paper.

They sat in silence until Bruce came in with disheveled hair. "Morning," he said, and headed for the coffee pot. After having poured himself a cup of coffee, he sat down next to Steve and asked, "Has anyone seen Jez?"

Pepper looked at him, then at Steve, then back at Bruce. "No. Why?"

Bruce shrugged. "I was supposed to help her with her science project."

"Don't worry," Steve pitched in, looking back down at his paper. "She's probably still sleeping."

* * *

Five hours later, when even Aiden was awake, Jez still was nowhere to be found. They had checked her room, her parents' room, and asked JARVIS to check everywhere else. But she was gone.

"Maybe she went for a walk," Bruce suggested.

"A five-hour walk?" Pepper asked.

"Without her cell," Aiden broke in.

"We should call the police," Steve said, and started to walk towards the phone.

"Oh that's a wonderful idea," Tony said. "Hi, we lost the child of two master assassins who work for a top-secret organization that no one's supposed to know about. Could you have her home by dinner so that they don't murder us?"

Pepper pulled out her phone and started tapping.

"Who are you calling?" Darcy asked.

"Phil," Pepper responded.

"A marvelous plan," Thor said, and hit Pepper on the back with enough force to knock her over. "Son of Coul will know what action to take."

"But what if he tells . . ." Tony was cut off by Pepper talking to Coulson.

"Phil, Jez is missing," she said.

There was a short pause while Coulson spoke.

"Since we got up . . . We tried that . . . Okay, thank you, Phil."

Pepper hung up the phone and looked at her house-mates. "Phil is going to look for her."

"What if he tells Barton and Romanoff?" Tony asked.

"They're going to find out anyway, Stark," Steve answered.

Jane had been silent the entire time. "Jane, what's wrong?" Pepper asked.

Jane looked up at them, tears in her eyes. "What if they don't find her?"

Thor was by her side in a few steps and had wrapped his arms around her. "Worry not, dearest. Lady Jez shall be found before the sun sets."

"Yeah," Darcy agreed. "SHIELD has, like, seven hundred agents looking for Jez."

"They'll find her," Pepper assured them all.

* * *

But when the residents of the Avengers Tower sat down for dinner, Jez was still missing.

Dinner was silent, punctured by quiet requests to pass the salt or potatoes, until JARVIS announced that Agents Barton and Romanoff were in the elevator.

Everyone at the table looked at each other and that at the elevator doors when they dinged. Clint and Natasha walked out with tired looks on their faces, but gave half-hearted smiles when they saw their teammates sitting at the table. Their smiles faded when they saw everyone else's faces.

Natasha did a quick scan of the room while Clint asked, "What's wrong?"

Everyone was there, everyone was fine.

"Coulson didn't tell you?" Steve said when no one else spoke up.

Everyone except . . .

"Where's Jez?" Natasha asked before Steve could open his mouth.

The table went quiet again. Tony's eyes were wide with fear.

Clint stepped forward. "Where is she?" His voice was low.

Pepper was the first person to find her voice again. "We don't know," she said. "She was with us when we went to bed, but she was gone when we woke up this morning."

"So you're saying that two genius scientists, a rage monster, a super soldier, and a god couldn't keep track of a teenage girl for a week?" Natasha asked, glaring at them all. Clint gave a low, nearly inaudible growl. Tony gulped and tried to hide behind his glass of water.

Steve stood up. "She disappeared sometime early this morning."

Natasha turned around. She didn't want them to see the tears she was fighting back. After a moment she turned back to the group.

"Don't worry," Bruce said. "We'll find her."

"What if she was kidnapped?" Natasha said.

Aiden stared at his plate in silence. He thought back to their conversation on Christmas Eve.

Clint noticed. "Aiden?" Aiden looked up at him. "Do you know where Jez is?"

Aiden looked back down at his plate and shook his head.

"Sweetheart," Pepper said quietly.

"I don't know where she is," Aiden interrupted her.

"But you know something," Steve said.

Aiden looked around at his parents and aunts and uncles. "I don't know where she is," he repeated, and looked at Natasha. "But I know she isn't coming back."

"What do you mean?" Clint asked.

"He means she left," Darcy spoke up. Everyone turned to look at her. "That's it, isn't it? She ran away. He doesn't know where she's running to, but he knows that she isn't calming back."

They looked back at Aiden, and he nodded.

The room burst into noise. Pepper and Tony yelling at Aiden for not telling them, Natasha and Clint yelling at their teammates for not protecting their daughter, Steve and Bruce yelling at everyone to calm down, and Thor yelling that if everyone didn't stop right now, he would "use my new cellular device to contact Lord Fury".

"Enough!" Steve finally bellowed, an everyone stopped yelling and looked at him. "Aiden, what did Jez say to you when she told you she was running away?"

Aiden shook his head. "She never told me. After you left," he looked at Clint and Natasha, "she told me she was tired of you not being here."

"And that told you she was going to run away?" Clint asked.

"No. When she didn't come back today I knew she'd left."

They were silent for a moment.

"It's your fault," Aiden said, looking at Clint and Natasha.

"What?" they said together at the same time Pepper said, "That's not true, Aiden."

"If you'd been around more she would have left."

"We couldn't help it," Clint said, "It's our job."

"On her birthday? On Christmas? Maybe it was your job then twenty years ago, but now you have a family." He paused. "Well, you did."

Pepper and Tony began to scold him, but Natasha interrupted them. "No, he's right."

"Tasha," Clint started, but she stopped him.

"We should have been there. It's our fault." She shook her head. "Just find her," she said, turning on her heel and leaving the room.

* * *

Across the city, Jez curled up in an alley. Her bag had been taken, and she had no food.

"Hey," she heard someone say, and looked up to see a boy with messy black hair sitting down next to her. "Hungry?" he asked, pulling a package of crackers out of his bag and handing them to her.

She nodded an accepted the cracked, opening the package and putting the first one into her mouth whole.

"I'm Alex," the boy said and stuck out his hand.

She swallowed the cracker an stared at the hand.

He could help her, this boy. She could trust him. She could tell.

She took his offered hand and smiled. "I'm Jez."

**Wow, 108 readers already! I hope you guys like this chapter, I know it's a little bit boring, but the next one is much more exciting. I think I'll upload next week, or maybe this weekend. Like I mentioned last chapter, this story is pre-written, so I'm trying to restrain myself from uploading too soon. I think that if my uploads are far enough apart, then people will get more and more excited for the next chapter. So I think I'll wait until at least this weekend. But I'll tell you one thing: Alex is very important. So don't forget about him.**

**Did anyone see the new Iron Man movie? My mom wouldn't take me last weekend, she didn't want to go when it would be crowded. So she's making me wait another week. I am counting down the days.**

**Review!**


	3. Chapter 3

**justsumwhitedude: Thank you! I hope this one is as good.**

**I don't own the Avengers. I do own Jez and Alex.**

**Chapter 3**

_Ten years later_

"Do you understand, Agents?" Fury asked, eyeballing them over his desk.

"Yes, sir," they replied.

Fury stood up. "Your flight is in an hour," he said, handing them each a folder. "These two people are highly dangerous, so be careful."

Clint chuckled. "Aren't we always, Director?"

Natasha bit back a laugh. Fury just looked at him. "Need I remind you of the missions you messed up, Agent Barton?" he asked. "I'm sure I have the number around here somewhere."

"Sir, all those missions were successful."

Fury glared at him. "Go get packed."

Natasha stood and dragged Clint out of his seat before he could say anything stupid (again). They left without a word.

"You're an idiot," she said when they got into the hallway.

He beamed and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. "That's why you love me, Nat."

* * *

"Director Fury briefed you?" Coulson asked when they boarded the quinjet.

"Briefly," Clint said.

Coulson rolled his eyes. "You know who you're taking down?"

"Yes sir," Natasha replied before Clint could open his mouth.

"The mission should take a few weeks," Coulson said. He handed them their earpieces. "Please try to use these."

Natasha smirked. "No promises."

"Now remember, these people are both highly dangerous, but our sources have told us that the female is a more skilled assassin. She's quieter, she can conceal herself better. Be very watchful," Coulson warned.

Both agents nodded, and the rest of the ride was silent.

* * *

The mission was in Greece, the last place the Angels had been seen. Two weeks into the mission they had left Greece and gone to various parts of Italy before ending up in France.

It was three weeks into the mission, they'd been in France for a week, and they had finally found the two assassins. They followed them into an abandoned building on the edge of the city.

Clint lifted himself onto the rafters and snuck into the room they were in.

The girl was sitting at a small wooden table, wiping at her shoulder. It was a gunshot wound. Her partner, was dipping a cloth into a bucket of water and bringing it over to her. He pushed hand away and began wiping at her shoulder himself.

Clint snuck back into the other room where Natasha was waiting. He pointed at his shoulder and made a gun with his fingers. Then he put his hand up next to the top of his head palm down and brought it down to rest on his shoulder. _The girl was shot in the shoulder._

Natasha nodded and pointed at him, then to the rafters, then to herself, then to the room. _You go up, I'll be on the ground._ She held her hands out, palms facing him, then pointed to herself. _Wait for me._ She pointed to herself, and brought her hand from the top of her head to her shoulder. _I'll get the girl._ She pointed at him, and brought her hand from the top of her head to her ear. _You get the boy._

He nodded, and clambered up into the rafters. She waited for the red light of his scope telling her he was ready, before pressing her back against the door frame.

"...good?" she heard from inside the room. It was a male voice.

The girl gave a laugh. "I've had worse."

"I know," he said. "I hate it every time."

Natasha rolled her eyes and stepped into the room, pointing her gun at them. "Touching," she said. Behind her, Clint dropped to the ground an pointed his bow at the boy. She shifted her aim to the girl.

The Angels had both pulled out weapons. The girl held a gun, and the boy had drawn a knife.

"Black Widow," the boy snarled.

Clint cleared his throat, looking indignant.

"Put down your weapons," the girl demanded. Her hair hid her face, but her voice was familiar.

"Oh my God," Natasha whispered.

Clint looked at his wife. Her face was white.

"Jez?" she said quietly.

The girl cocked her gun and shook her hair out of her face.

Clint dropped his bow, and the boy threw his knife. His aim was perfect, but Clint swayed to the side and the knife missed him by an inch and imbedded itself in the wood behind him. Clint pulled the knife out of the wall and jumped up to grab onto one of the rafters.

Jez had fired the gun as soon as Alex had thrown his knife. She had been aiming for Natasha's shoulder, but her aim was slightly off and Natasha was able to duck out of the way. Natasha flipped toward Jez and kicked the gun out of her hands, and in another swift kick to the jaw Jez was on the ground.

Clint swing down behind Alex and held the knife at his neck.

Natasha flipped backwards and pointed the gun at Jez.

Jez bit her lip, looking at the floor. She'd landed on her bad shoulder, and she could feel the blood seeping through her bandage.

"What are you doing here?" Natasha asked.

Jez chuckled and picked herself up off the ground, wiping her mouth and finding blood.

"Did you miss me, _Mother_?" she asked.

"Mother?" Alex asked, and Clint pressed the knife harder into his neck.

"Alex, meet my parents," Jez said, not taking her eyes off of Natasha.

"You told me they were dead."

Jez stared at her mother for a moment. "They are dead," she finally whispered. "To me."

"We're sorry, Jez," Natasha said. "We should have been there more."

Jez laughed harshly. "I could have dealt with you being gone."

A tear rolled down Natasha's face. "Then why did you leave?"

"Because it wasn't just that you were gone a lot. It's your job, I get that. But what about the times when you were home? Would it have killed you to come to just one of my recitals or meets? Maybe a school concert once in a while?" Jez was yelling now. "Would it really have been so hard to just play with me? Or been home for my birthday? How long did it take you to notice I was gone?"

"Five minutes," Clint said. "We walked in the door and realized you were gone."

"We tried, Jez," Natasha said. "We tried to be there."

"Not hard enough!" Jez screamed.

It was silent for a moment.

"So you ran away," Clint said. "I get that. But why did you start killing people?"

Jez shrugged. "Good pay. And I love the thrill. We started because someone saw us taking down a robber, which we didn't actually mean to do, but they saw us and offered us a job. We just kept getting offers, so we kept taking them. Besides," she smirked, "I learned from the best, didn't I?"

"That isn't what we meant to teach you," Natasha whispered.

"But you did."

"Natasha, we have a mission," Clint reminded her.

"We can't kill them."

"They're murderers," Clint said. "She isn't our daughter anymore."

"How would you know? Maybe I was always like this. You just weren't around enough to know," Jez said.

Natasha looked at Jez.

"You won't shoot me."

Her voice didn't shake. She stared coolly at her mother as Natasha cocked the gun and put her finger on the trigger.

To her left, Clint moved so that he wasn't behind Alex.

Jez saw the movement, and she suddenly knew what was happening.

"You're right," Natasha said. She swung her arm around to aim at Alex. "But I'll shoot him."

Jez moved before the gun fired. The bullet flew forward.

Jez was thrown backward by its impact.

Alex screamed her name as her blood covered the floor. Clint threw Alex aside and knelt beside his daughter. Natasha slowly lowered the gun. She was in shock.

Tears streamed down Clint's face as he tried to wake her up. Natasha slowly fell to her knees.

The blood flow ebbed and died away.

Clint closed his daughter's eyes.

Alex stood and attacked Natasha.

"You killed her!" he screamed, hitting Natasha across the face. But Natasha didn't move, didn't try to get him off of her.

Finally Clint was able to pull Alex off and held him against the wall.

"Let him go, Clint," Natasha ordered. Her lip was bleeding.

Clint looked at her. "Our mission is to take out the Angels."

"I can't believe you still care about that! I just shot our daughter! And you still care about the mission?"

"She wasn't our daughter!" Clint exploded, letting Alex off the wall and turning to face his wife. "That wasn't the Jezebel we raised!"

"We didn't raise her!"

Clint stared at her.

"Don't you see? We abandoned her. Our own daughter. We were the reason she turned into this. It..." she took a deep breath. "It's our fault all those innocent people were killed."

Clint shook his head and opened his mouth to speak.

"It is, Clint. And we can't kill this boy for something that was our fault."

"He murdered innocent people."

She shook her head. "But if we had just payed attention to our daughter, he wouldn't have. Because she wouldn't have joined him. And he won't do it anymore." She looked at her daughter's body and a small sob escaped her lips. "He lost her because of his job. He won't do it anymore."

Clint looked at Alex, and took a deep breath. "Jez trusted you. Natasha trusts you. That's good enough for me." He held out his hand.

Alex looked down, then looked back up at Clint. "You killed her," he spat. "I won't touch you."

He turned and ran out of the building.

Natasha knelt next to her daughter, gathered Jez in her arms, and sobbed quietly.

* * *

They boarded the quinjet silently. Natasha was carrying a small box.

Natasha sat down and hugged the box to her stomach.

Coulson put his hand on Clint's shoulder. "I'll need a summary of the mission, Agent Barton."

Clint was quiet for a moment. Then he turned to look at his handler. "We're done."

"Agent Barton," Coulson began, but Clint cut him off.

"Natasha shot our daughter. It was SHIELD's fault." He held out his hand and dropped something into Coulson's hand. "We're done." He walked over to sit next to Natasha.

Coulson looked down. In the palm of his hand he held Clint's SHIELD ID card.

**There will be an epilogue coming out soon. I hope you liked this, I feel like it wasn't my best. Anyway, I'll have the epilogue up soon.**

**READERS OF _THE SADNESS OF MISTAKES_: If you don't already know, there is another chapter up. After seven months, I finally posted it. I'm so sorry about the wait.**

**READERS OF _OF THE ANGELS' GRACE_: I hope to have a new song fic up soon. I have to check which ones I've done and see if I've already done one for the song I'm thinking of.**

**READERS OF _TIRED OF SORRY_: I know this is an old one, but a lot of you asked for more Jason/Reyna, so I think I'm going to upload a new story about them. If anyone cares.**

**I think that's all in the way of news. Again, I hope you liked the chapter and I'll have the epilogue up soon. It's really short, so I think it'll just be a couple of days. A week at most.**

**Review!**


	4. Epilogue

**Avamys: I updated specifically for you. Because you asked me to.**

**I don't own the Avengers. I do own Jez, Aiden, and Alex.**

**Epilogue**

Their arrival at the Tower was terrible. Pepper, Jane, Darcy Thor, and Steve Cried. Tony turned away from everyone. Bruce simply sat and stared at his hands. Clint explained everything emotionlessly. Natasha said nothing.

When they called Aiden at college, he was silent. Then he thanked them and hung up.

Then he threw his phone against the wall and fell to his knees, sobbing.

The funeral was held a week after they had gotten back. They had burned her before they got on the quinjet. Her parents were made of fire, she'd proved that she was made of fire, too, it seemed fair that she would be burned. Coulson and Fury both came. There was no priest, just a few people talking about Jez. Some music was played.

After the funeral, Clint and Natasha went to their car. They'd said goodbye, they'd packed. It was time to start over.

"Are you sure we're ready?" Natasha asked.

Clint looked through the windshield. He thought of the day they'd met, that day on the Russian tundra when he was supposed to kill her. He thought of the missions they had gone on, of Sao Paolo, of Budapest. He thought of the day they'd gotten married in a fire fight, witnessed by Coulson and Hill. He thought of the day he'd come back from a solo mission and Natasha told him she was pregnant.

He thought of the day Jezebel was born, and he saw her for the first time. And the first thing he thought was, _she's perfect_.

He thought of the fear he'd felt when he found out she was missing, of the despair that came with every passing day they didn't find her, of the emptiness when the case was closed. Of the hope when they found her, and the shock when Natasha's bullet hit her.

Through the trees, he thought he could see a dark haired boy staring at the graveyard. Alex, come to pay his last respects to her.

He'd loved her, Clint realized. Alex had loved Jez. In another world, Alex could have become family.

He looked at Natasha. "We're ready," he said. She smiled and looked at the road as she started the car. He looked back at the trees. Alex was gone.

"We're ready."

**I'm not going to apologize for the shortness of this because it's an epilogue. I would like to point out that I really liked the two lines when they told Aiden that Jez was dead. I was very happy with that part. I don't know why.**

**That's the end of this story. Very short story, I know. If anyone is interested, this idea was actually born on New Year's Eve when I went to the bathroom and was taken away by the scene with Jez and Aiden in the bathroom. Most of my stories are born that way, I'll make up a character and put myself in their shoes and imagine my life to be theirs, and see where it takes me. It's effective, actually. Although I think people might think I'm crazy when they see me talking to myself when I'm actually having a conversation with one of my characters.**

**Well, now that we've established that I am, in fact, insane, I would like to say thank you to everyone who reviewed, favorited, or followed this story. And everyone who read it but didn't review, favorite, or follow it (even though you should have).**

**Thank you!**


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